We also remember the many, many women in our own communities and around the world who have lost their lives to gender-based violence, as well as those who have faced it and survived, and those who continue to face it every day.

They are all around you.

We need to make a particular effort to remember the women whose voices and experiences of violence are too often silenced, hidden, ignored – trans women, women of colour, elders, women with disabilities, and Indigenous women.

I want to believe that we are at a watershed moment for addressing violence against women in Canada this year, post #YesAllWomen and #BeenRapedNeverReported, but I can’t help but feel what Denise Balkisoon said in her article at the Globe and Mail: “Why is now the moment?” We have seen too many of these moments go by – she mentions missing and murdered women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the brutal 2009 murder of Donna Jones by her husband, and there are so many more. In my home province of B.C., more than 20 people have died in domestic-violence related murders and suicides this year alone. Another 11 people were seriously injured (Source, .pdf).

This can be a watershed moment for violence against women, but we can’t sit back and think it will just sweep us along with its natural momentum. Let’s think of ourselves as singular drops of water pushing the dam to break. It will take solidarity and determination. We must each work harder than we’ve ever worked before to keep this issue top of the agenda; to support survivors; to educate children; to press our governments to make necessary, long overdue policy changes; and to win over more hearts and minds to help us.

I’m going to close off with some recommended reading and viewing for December 6, as well as some actions to take and campaigns to support to get you kick-started. But please also add your ideas below in the comments: what can you do to end violence against women?

“Twenty-five years later, as I re-evaluate my stories and with the benefit of analysis of the coverage that massacre spawned, I see how journalists— male and female producers, news directors, reporters, anchors — subtly changed the meaning of the tragedy to one that the public would get behind, silencing so-called ‘angry feminists.'”

The Ottawa Citizen editorial also calls the massacre what it was, an attack against feminism. The editorial board says there is reason for hope, but that we would be naive to think “that we have moved beyond anti-feminist violence and threats”.

“Last month, the only reason why the Conservative attempt to further loosen gun control laws was shelved was a poorly timed attack on Parliament Hill where a gunman shot his way past security. Security has already been tightened such that visitors are no longer allowed on Wednesday, when caucuses meet. Because the value placed on politicians’ lives is higher than of women who might meet the end of a gun some day.”

“I am thinking about the long legacies of women scholars before me, and the legacy I share with colleagues of my own generation. I would be lying if I said I was not worried. I would be lying if I said that I believed we lived in a world where female scholars can speak, study, dress, and occupy space in the academy as freely as we should be able to. Because we know. We know that the aggressions we face are all too real.”

See the results of a new study by the Canadian Labour Congress and the University of Western Ontario on the impacts of domestic violence in Canadian workplaces.

“‘He was our first terrorist and nobody was treating it that way,’ says [Francine] Pelletier. ‘Those (engineering) students dared to take the place of men. They represented our future and he was targeting our future — how we imagined ourselves to be.'”

And a difficult but important video to watch: The Fifth Estate‘s new 45-minute special, “The Legacy of Pain”, streaming on YouTube:

Call on federal party leaders to debate women’s issues – including violence against women and specifically missing and murdered Aboriginal women – in the 2015 election campaign. Join the call at the the Up For Debate website.

Make violence against women a vote-determining issue for you. Explore related political issues like access to housing and childcare, poverty, and more. Every. Single. Election.

Visit and consider donating to It Starts With Us, the community-led database established to document the violent deaths and disappearances of Indigenous women.

Volunteer for and/or consider donating to community organizations working on violence against women, both those providing direct services to survivors and those working on prevention through things like educating youth.

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